Becoming the local loan 🦈

Larry if you trust your fiancé and her cousin then it's up to you but many get burnt.

Bens sister asked, begged to borrow some money to send her daughter up to Baguio to finish her nursing coarse, Bens niece. The proviso was it was a loan and has to be repaid with no interest over a year or 2, 6 or 7 years on nada, not one peso and Ben has mentioned to her a few times and apparently she just smiles and changes the subject.

I stopped helping Bens family some years ago and remembered some wise words my dad told me 50 years ago. "God helps those that help themselves" and always he said if you can't afford don't look.

I might be a hard ass but with good reason, even with Ben, he is paying me back 1k per month for the next 3 years as his ego dictated that a 4 year old Mio (we purchased new) was too small and he had to upgrade, fine I said but pay for it, he is and in front.

Just be very careful Larry, if you go down that path the opportunists will suddenly be your best mate.

I stick my money into banks, shares and superannuation and get 5 to 10% and don't get scammed.

Good luck.

Cheers, Steve.

LOL, Just thinking about that Larry I suppose we are the local loan as you call it, we have 10 workers here that we pay every Saturday and come Monday/Tuesday 4 or 5 of them ask for pay advance and no problem as it's deducted from their wage every week, I have mentioned to Ben a few times that these guys need to learn the meaning of budget, they live from week to week, Hope your fiancés cousin isn't like some of them.

Cheers, Steve.

@bigpearl thanks for your response. I will never have too much tied up that losing would tilt me. They have yet to decide on doing this with the 45k bike. One part may be they were looking at taking over someone's payments and I demanded they get a cash price. And I would go with them to get the title. It's possible the dealer won't accept cash buyout when he's looking at 80%profits in finance.

I did loan a paltry 14,000 to her 1st cousin today for a motorcycle for their kid. But his wife works for us full-time in the piggery and needs that income. Plus the kid works for me 1 weekend day per week on our property. I like the kid and try to mentor him on some school subjects and help him with English. Teaching work ethics and life skills. It's a short term loan over 9 months. 

@bigpearl I'm not surprised.  I advanced to both of our construction workers that were building our hollow block/interwire/barbedwire fence over the short week for Easter/Holy week.

It's no wonder Steve, why so many in the province are poor. When they're financing motorcycles at massive rates and borrowing money to make interest payments as a result.  I won't do it for free. I mean I got 5.7% this week on a 13 week t-bill. And that's basically zero risk. At 20-25% I'm making something with risk. But also saving them tons. Which in the long run is much better for everyone. Keeps them circulating money within the local economy.

Hear you Larry and it's nice to mentor a potential good human being, Kudos to you. I put 3 apprentice plumbers through their time to license, a challenge but they are all doing well.

I have been mentoring 9 to 12 workers here for 8/9 months and they keep making the same mistakes, I'm talking 4 masons, a steel worker and an electrician, 5 labourers (they are fine and do what asked whether right or wrong).

We have an Auto laser level that a few of them have mastered with mentoring and guess what? After some 50 posts, tie beams, 6 inch block walls all rendered?  2M + pesos of materials.  All corrected by me, they are installing the last 8 posts and beams to the ocean and the levels are up to 2 ft (600mm) out, you might have a good guy to mentor but here I have learnt no matter how hard I try to teach/show you can't fix stupid or ineptitude.

I'll be glad when it's over.

Cheers, Steve.

Larry OMO but the ones with their hands out Monday/Tuesday spend it all on piss through the week and need more, some don't turn up the start of the week because they have hang overs, I drink but control, they can't it seems and I'm not their mother.

Cheers, Steve.

Loans for family or friends have a downside, if the loan should go sour you can lose a friendship. Either you could be bitter or the person you loaned the money to is ashamed to face you.

I would never loan a family member and charge interest. It's not a business deal, it's a family member helping another member.

It doesn't make a person a humanitarian by charging cheaper interest either.

P45K is about $800 USD over three years without interest. A zero interest loan to him would be

$22.22 USD per month.

So true Bob, as said I learnt and won't go back and it only cost me P30K from the sister in-law. Other family members have asked to borrow money and we refer them to Bens sister that smiles to Ben but I'm sure she feels the wrong that she has done and now the perhaps honest family members get jack sh1t, suffer because she made a mistake.

Side note as we say but I was talking to Bens cousin today,,,, I have known him for 11 years, he is 28 drinks like a fish (one of the guys that doesn't turn up Mondays) and he has never been to Manila 5 hours away nor most places and only Baguio 2 hours away because Ben took him up there a few months ago while getting my mac repaired. Such a nice guy that only knows his Barangay and never asked for a thing aside from a 200 peso advance on Tuesday or Wednesday so he gets his Emperador, his father is the same and I wonder where he/they will be when unable to work any more. Nada and no kids to help support.

Cheers, Steve.

Don't do it.

But if you do do it. Go to a lawyer and get a contract with details. Costs about 500 pesos but well worth it.

I dont do loans. I do give money to family as needed, but I don't want to put people in a position of not being able to pay it back, when I know they can't